Employees: Books

1001 Ways to Energize Employees

Weaving together case studies, examples, techniques, research highlights, and quotes from business leaders, this handbook offers suggestions for increasing employee involvement and enthusiasm.

Bob Nelson. Workman Publishing Co. 213pp. Cost: $9.65

1001 Ways to Reward Employees

Helps managers take certain rewards and mold them into new management styles at their companies. The author polled companies about their favorite recognition practices, no matter how small, and came up with a gold mine.

Bob Nelson. Workman Publishing Company. 352pp. Paperback. Cost: $10.36

1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work

Latest ideas on how to recognize employees and build momentum in the work force.

Bob Nelson. Workman Publishing C. 240pp. Paperback. Cost: $10.95

301 Ways to Have Fun at Work

This book present hundreds of methods and activities that incorporate fun in an organization's work: hiring, training sessions, meetings, communications, awards, and teamwork. The authors asked successful businesspeople worldwide if fun played a part in their corporate culture--and, if so, how it was actually manifested in everyday life.

Dave Hemsath and Leslie Yerkes. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 245pp. Paperback. Cost: $12.21

A Manager's Guide to Staff Incentives and Performance Improvement Techniques

Offers practical advice for managers on incentive methods such as cash and non-cash reward systems; incentive travel; events; recognition systems; and flexible benefits.

John G. Fisher. Kogan Page. Hardcover. Cost: Currently unavailable

Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces With Customers

Best Face Forward talks about obtaining success through employee motivation. This book reveals how to determine the optimal division of labor between people and machines, discover innovative ways to combine people and machines to mediate critical customer interactions, and more.

Jeffrey F. Rayport & Bernard J. Jaworski. Harvard Business School Press. 262pp. Hardcover. Cost: $24.05

Best Practices : Building Your Business with Customer-Focused Solutions

Best Practices shares how more than forty best-practices companies focus on their customers, create growth, reduce cost, and increase profts. It focuses on customers and how to involve them in everything from the design of products and services to marketing, selling, and product delivery. This book is good for managers in any business, in any industry.

Arthur Andersen, Robert Heibeler, Thomas B. Kelly, Charles Ketteman. Touchstone. 240pp. Paperback. Cost: Varies with seller

Best Sales Promotions

Reviews 126 of the best recent sales promotion campaigns. Readers will develop a better understanding of what constitutes a successful promotion and of what a good promotion can—and can't—do. A straightforward book that is useful for readers with all levels of experience.

William A. Robinson. McGraw-Hill Companies. 240pp. Paperback.

Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement

This book tells how to use a behavior-based performance management system to transform employees' work into something they are willing—even eager—to do. Offers the newest strategies used by companies like Xerox, 3M, and Kodak.

Dr. Aubrey C. Daniels. McGraw-Hill. 245pp. Hardcover. Cost: $14.93

Care Packages for the Workplace: Dozens of Little Things You Can Do To Regenerate Spirit at Work

This book is full of motivational ideas that will enliven communication, increase employee appreciation, and add fun to the workplace.

Barbara A. Glanz. McGraw-Hill. 222pp. Paperback. Cost: $10.17

Compensation for Teams: How to Design and Implement Team-Based Reward Programs

Managers looking for a team approach will find particular satisfaction here. The author looks at the critical issue of aligning an organization's compensation, culture, and strategy, and then delves into the steps involved with designing and implementing team-based reward systems. Chapters cover such issues as incentive compensation, recognition awards, and the architecture of team pay.

Steven E. Gross. AMACOM. 259pp. Hardcover.

Contented Cows Give Better Milk: The Plain Truth About Employee Relations and Your Bottom Line

This book makes the case that companies that treat their employees right make more money.

Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden. Contented Cow Partners. 208pp. Paperback. Cost: $18.00

Creating a Total Rewards Strategy

Described by the publisher as a "toolkit for designing business based plans," this book provides a highly detailed approach to implementing a total rewards strategy. Literally every step of the process is detailed, with specific examples, Includes a CD.

Manas, Todd M., and Graham, Michael Dennis. Amacom, American Management Association . 352pp. Hardcover .

Exceeding Customer Expectations

Based on the business practices and history of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, this book focuses on how the company has achieved financial results by creating happy customers, successful business partnerships, and an engaged and motivated workforce. It discusses the relationship between the company's employee satisfaction, retention, and profitability, and shows how Enterprise makes and reinforces those connections.

Kirk Kazanjian . Currency . 256pp. Hardcover . Cost: $16.47

Four Elements of Successful Management

This book addresses basic management issues applicable to almost any organization and manager. It provides a simple approach summarized as "select, direct, evaluate, and reward," but is in no way short of details. It includes extensive information on every aspect of the process, including benefits of cash and noncash awards.

Marshall, Don R. . Amacom. 208pp. Hardcover . Cost: $14.96

How to Design & Implement a Results-Oriented Variable Pay System

Here's a detailed process for implementing profit sharing, gain-sharing, and goal sharing. You'll get a step-by-step approach that includes organizing the design team, establishing baselines and measurement tools, and determining the frequency and methods of payout. Chapters cover: multi-tiered and small-group systems, selecting and evaluating measures, assigning values to gains or goals, establishing baselines, and sharing the gains. You'll find more implementation details than in many business books.

John G. Belcher, Jr.. American Management Association. 248pp. Hardcover. Cost: $44.00

How to Motivate People: The Team Strategy for Success

How to Motivate People explains the principles of successful motivation through author, Tarkenton's, P.R.I.C.E (Pinpointing, Recording, Invovlement, Consequences, Evaluation) program. This book shows you how to identify motivational stumbling blacks, track performance levels, inspire participation in setting goals and achieving objectives, plus much more.

Fran Tarkenton, Tad Tuleja. Harpercollins. 243pp. Hardcover.

How to Run an Incentive Program

A booklet published by Incentive magazine that details how to structure incentive programs.

Incentives in Marketing & Motivation

A comprehensive text on the incentive marketplace. The content is illustrated and includes numerous case studies that reveal the breadth and potential of the incentive marketplace.

Meredith Aim. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 512pp. Paperback.

Innovative Reward Systems for the Changing Workplace

Although several years old, this book takes a thorough look at reward systems in the context of today's customer- and performance-based management styles. The author tells how to: make pay relate to achievement, foster a sense of stake in the company, update the traditional performance appraisal process, and measure customer-based performance.

Thomas B. Wilson. McGraw-Hill. 350pp. Hardcover.

Light Their Fire: Using Internal Marketing to Ignite Employee Performance and Wow Your Customers

Light Their Fire discusses how employee communications is the key to delivering on solidifying customer relationships. This book will teach you how to identify the varying perspectives of different audiences, tailor your messages for maximum effectiveness, and much more.

Susan Drake, Michelle Janette Gulman, Sara Roberts. Kaplan Business. 272pp. Hardcover. Cost: $15.64

Managing Through Incentives: How to Develop a More Collaborative, Productive, and Profitable Organization

Shows managers how to apply proven motivators to help any size firm energize the work force, increase its profits, and meet the challenges of today's competitive global economy. Presents the pros and cons of incentives as well as why and how they work and discusses in detail incentives for executives and workers and those used for marketing to consumers.

Richard B. McKenzie and Dwight R. Lee. Oxford University Press. 352pp. Hardcover. Cost: $60.00

Measuring To Manage: Using Measurable Data to Get Maximum Employee Performance

Measuring To Manage address the When, How, and Why of employee evaluations as well as provides information detailing how to turn mediocre employees into top performers.

Michael W. Hill. 88pp. Paperback.

Motivating Employees

This book reveals how Southwest Airlines, Walt Disney Co., Ben & Jerry's, and other companies have turned themselves into "motivating organizations" that inspire employees to do excellent work.

Anne Bruce and James S. Pepitone. McGraw-Hill. 160pp. Paperback. Cost: $10.17

Motivation of Personnel

Various authors give you the lowdown on many motivational issues. Contains good summaries of both Maslow and Herzberg.

Edited by, Dale A. Timpe. Facts on File. 369 pp. Hardcover.

Other People's Habits: How to Use Positive Reinforcement to Bring Out the Best in People Around You

This science-based guide introduces a technique with which to influence those around us honestly and beneficially. Shows how to make the most of positive reinforcement to bring out the best in other people, establishing effective relationships based on mutual respect and shared expectations.

Dr. Aubrey C. Daniels. McGraw-Hill. 195pp. Hardcover.

Principles of Results-Based Incentive Program Design

Based on the Incentive Marketing Association's Principles Of Results-Based Incentive Program Design Seminar, this is the first formal curriculum ever developed for incentive program planning. The textbook includes sections on Incentive Program Basics for the Business Executive, Core Strategies for the Business Executive, Planning and Design Considerations for the Practitioner, and Implementation and Management Considerations for the Practitioner.

Bruce Bolger and Rodger Stotz. Incentive Marketing Association. Cost: $69.95

Retaining Your Employees

Described as a "crisp, fifty-minute" book, this concise, step-by-step approach to employee motivation. The authors focus on using "respect, recognition, and rewards" to achieve positive organizational results. In a concise, quickly readable format, they address the benefits to keeping employees and keeping them happy; creating a fun, enriching and "hard-to-leave" workfplace; understanding the impact of feeling valued at work, and tapping to employee desires for personal and professional growth.

Wingfield, Barb, and Berry, Janice . Thomson Course Technology . 104pp. Paperback. Cost: $13.95

Secrets of a Successful Recognition System

This short book provides a simple program designed especially for companies trying to break down barriers between management and a union. Based on the importance of thanking employees, the book provides some practical ideas, but its approach seems a bit simplistic for complex labor-management issues.

Daniel C. Boyle. Productivity Press. 152pp. Paperback.

The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First

This book examines why much of the current conventional wisdom is wrong and asks us to re-think the way managers link people with organizational performance. Pfeffer builds a powerful business case for managing people effectively--not just because it makes for good corporate policy, but because it results in outstanding performance and profits.

Jeffrey Pfeffer. Harvard Business School Press. 345pp. Hardcover. Cost: $19.77

The Reward Plan Advantage: A Manager's Guide to Improving Business Performance Through People

The author describes recognition and group incentive plans, as well as types of awards and implementation. This book comes closer than most to addressing brass-tacks programs that managers at almost any level of an organization can implement.

Jerry L. McAdams. Jossey-Bass . 332pp. Paperback. Cost: $45.00